<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Meet Me Tonight in Republic City by DoHK</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26451730">Meet Me Tonight in Republic City</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoHK/pseuds/DoHK'>DoHK</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Noir, Detective Noir, Gen, Past Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Past Sokka/Ty Lee (Avatar), Post-Canon, detective sokka, toph is not a cop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:34:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26451730</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoHK/pseuds/DoHK</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's trouble busting in from out-of-state and the Avatar can't get no relief. So he asks Sokka to make a reprise of his old detective work and figure out just what's brewing between the capitalists, the drug dealers and the rest of the underbelly of Republic City.<br/>Forget it Aang, it's Republic City.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aang/Sokka (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Ty Lee (Avatar), Toph Beifong/Sokka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Returning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a work in progress and I am stealing liberally from Chandler, Hammett and a whole lot of others.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He imagined he heard the sound of ice settling while he sat in the sleek glass and steel bridge and watched another plane pass underneath. The asphalt looked close to melting. Getting off the plane he’d felt it come off the ground like a blast furnace as he stepped onto the jetway. The suit was crisp as he could have made it in the airport bathroom. After six hours on the plane, there was only so much to be done with pinched fingers on the creases, unbuttoning and rebuttoning his shirt and to let the sweat in the small of his back dry out. It was cool in the bridgeway.</p><p>He found he had his best ideas when he was travelling through temples of concrete, glass and steel. Right now he was toying with a new concept for pre-fabricated buildings that could be permanent housing. He enjoyed the control he had over the world in his imagination, or rather the way control worked in nature and then his imagination discovered new uses for that control.</p><p>The public announcement announced his name and said his ride had arrived. He stood up and snapped his jacket even if the ride was going to blow everything out of place again. As he stepped through the front doors he looked around for them, and shook his head as he saw the knot of people surrounding the world’s most powerful weapon and his very dear friend.</p><p>****</p><p>“Aang, I tell you this every time, you don’t have to personally pick me up when I fly in for business,” Sokka said, the cool air from Appa’s flight a long-forgotten joy that plane flying never could replace.</p><p>“Yeah, and every time I do because I like to. What’s it this time, the pre-fabs?” the Avatar responded, splendid in ochre and yellow, his tattoos shocks of color on his head and his hands.</p><p>“You guessed it. We’ve had some success in the Earth Kingdom putting them up without earthbenders, and while they aren’t too pleased I think it should make inroads in the Fire Nation. Here too, actually. I worry about the homeless population I see on the streets whenever I come here, seems like there’s more and more every time,” Sokka said, looking down at the shining steel and glass of Republic City.</p><p>“Right. I think those could be very useful and I’ll talk to the United Council about it too. I doubt you need seed money but a few orders could be useful,” Aang said as Appa gained height and banked to the east.</p><p>“How’s Katara?”</p><p>Aang snorted.</p><p>“Ripping apart these new conglomerate leaders like they’re dried kelpweed. Good thing you’re her brother AND think about people before money. But I’m also hoping to get you away from pre-fabs for a little while. Something has cropped up here and I think you’ll be very useful to help out…” Aang trailed off, but Sokka’s ears had perked up. He’d heard about the conglomerate leaders trying to argue they didn’t need to pay workers real currency if they lived in their company villages, where they had their company homes and ate company food. Sokka’s gut knotted with rage as he thought of them doing that to people who just wanted to own something of their own without fear of a bully wrenching it from them.</p><p>“I’ll see what I can do. I’ve got some good Ba Sing Se University MBAs onboard who’ve been chomping at the bit to expand us into Caldera City; they could handle the groundwork on their own for a while,” Sokka said, an air of nonchalance betrayed only by the grin he was now wearing as he looked down at the city. “I missed being close to you guys too. Might be worthwhile looking for a house here.”</p><p>Aang laughed at that.</p><p>****</p><p>Katara ran up and gave him a hug as soon as she saw the bison land.</p><p>“I missed you sister. Heard you were also causing some very wealthy people some major headaches,” Sokka said.</p><p>Katara rolled her eyes and punched him in the shoulder. “That’s what I’ve always done, and you’re not free of it just because you actually have a soul, Sokka.”</p><p>“So they say, so they say. How are you two doing? Dad said to say hello and to also tell you he’s sending some new tigerseal skin rugs for the guest house; he got a couple of big ones this year and has been over the moon about making new rugs for you two,” Sokka said, walking toward the house with his duffel slung over his shoulder.</p><p>“Classic Dad. Thanks, we’ll need them. It gets colder on the island than you’d expect and I’ll admit I haven’t kept my cold tolerance as much as I should have,” Katara said, matching Sokka stride for stride.</p><p>Aang sped by both of them on an air scooter, calling back “race you both to the kitchen; last one in makes dinner!”</p><p>Sokka looked at Katara and Katara looked at Sokka. In unison:</p><p>“IT’S YOUR TURN AANG!”</p><p>**** </p><p>After they’d eaten dessert — fruit pies with literally the airiest whipped cream imaginable — Aang poured jasmine tea for the three of them. Sokka had noticed the liquor in the cabinet and the cooking alcohol had been studiously hidden away, but didn’t mention it.</p><p>“So, tell me what’s going on here recently. I heard there might be a job for me,” Sokka said, rolling the tea slowly around his cup.</p><p>Katara and Aang, sitting close to each other, straightened their backs and exchanged a glance. A lot was communicated in that glance, Sokka could tell, and he felt even better that his sister and Aang had found each other as they grew into their lives together.</p><p>“You’ve heard of the elections for the United Council, right? And you’re familiar with the candidates?” Aang asked, a perfunctory question for someone like Sokka who had to stay abreast of the politics in this new world he had help make.</p><p>“Yeah. It’s Chan-Mo Lee running against Korka from the Northern Water Tribe. Lee is slick and says a lot of things that don’t mean anything, but looks good and has connections through his father’s company, and Korka is the progressive pro-labor guy who has been beaten over the head for some of his earlier statements about companies paying their workers in scrip. Lee is playing at being fair and balanced but would tilt the Council to a pro-capital bent that would make any systemic changes difficult to impossible to enact, while Korka would grease the rails for what Katara and you have been working for in the past five years,” Sokka said, sipping his tea as he finished.</p><p>Aang clapped enthusiastically. “Masterfully summarized oh brilliant one!” The clapping stirred air currents and ruffled Sokka’s half-buttoned shirt, which Aang noticed and laughed.</p><p>Katara rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s it. But the thing is we think Lee is working with some people who are… less than delighted about publicity. Triad and capital, we think.”</p><p>“Think?” Sokka said, noticing Katara’s reticence to draw the line between the three.</p><p>“Think. Some of Toph’s people have tried to get in, but we’ve had some… casualties. One was found a month ago off a harbor pier. Earthbenders had encased his feet in rock and sank him. They only found him after … well, after he had mostly decomposed. Only knew it was him because of dental work,” Katara said, looking straight at Sokka.</p><p>“Ah. I think I get the picture,” he said, carefully, but feeling wheels turning in his head already.</p><p>“So, we don’t want to ask for a favor this dangerous, but, well… you are you. And we know what you can do,” Aang said, leaning forward out of his comfortable lotus position, his tattoos rippling as his fingers drummed on his knees.</p><p>“Oh, oh I’m very interested. And I think I know who might be able to help. I’ll need to make some calls and find a place in the city, but yeah. It’s been a while, but I think this will be good for me,” Sokka said, a bit distantly.</p><p>“Thank you. But you’re staying here tonight; we still need to break our tie in pai sho,” Katara said. “I’ve been playing with Iroh recently, so prepare to lose.”</p><p>Sokka grinned at that. “Only if Aang gets winner; I know Zuko and him have been fighting a long war of attrition there.”</p><p>Aang shouted over the sound of running water in the kitchen, “Yeah, and I’ve beaten him six times straight!”</p><p>Sokka smiled again in content. This was going to be fun.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Smoke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Sokka woke up the next morning, Aang was gone but Katara was in the kitchen, preparing porridge and pinkberry jam toast with some smoked whitefish.</p><p>“Aang already going? Man is a perpetual motion machine,” Sokka said, pouring himself coffee from a carafe and taking a sip. “Hey, I didn’t wince! You have gotten better at brewing this stuff.”</p><p>Katara snapped a towel at him. “Oh hush, you just didn’t like it because it wasn’t made in a pour-over you big baby.”</p><p>Sokka pretended to be affronted. “High standards are a good thing! It explains so much about me.”</p><p>Katara rolled her eyes. “Come on, let’s eat in the garden, then you can take the ferry to the city.”</p><p>As they ate, Sokka perused a newspaper. “Lee claiming he would fight for the people, neither worker or capital huh? Liar.”</p><p>Katara snorted.</p><p>“Oh, and it looks like Brassica Inc. is going public too; that’ll be a money fountain,” Sokka said, putting the paper down. “Now, what else am I missing here?”</p><p>“People love cabbages and well-run industrial agriculture? That seems self-explanatory,” Katara said, taking a sip of coffee. Sokka rolled his eyes this time.</p><p>“In terms of this? Aang isn’t letting on to a couple of things that you’ll have guessed and I didn’t give you a full rundown yet either,” Katara said, stretching. Sokka fished out his cigarette case from his shirt pocket and pulled out a box of matches from his pocket.</p><p>“Go on,” he said, striking the match and inhaling the Fire Nation tobacco smoke.</p><p>“Things are worse here than you think and there’s been a lot of violence. Rioting, a lot of high-profile murders and the gangs have gotten very, very bold. Capital too, but they live behind walls and only deal with numbers that must always go up. People are not doing what they should be doing, Sokka, and people are scared,” Katara said, looking at him, her eyes hard and her mouth a straight line.</p><p>“And Lee’s definitely in the pocket of someone; I think there are a few of those big companies that have their hands pulling his strings at the very least. But Wu Qing is the first among equals in absolute bastards there; he owns—”</p><p>“The mining conglomerates that have taken over most of the ore production in the south Earth Kingdom, western Fire Nation, and are now working on ocean floor extraction in the north. More money than Agni and arrogant as the biggest hog monkey in the troop? That Wu Qing?” Sokka said.</p><p>“Give the man a small cup of jasmine!” Katara said. “Yes, that Wu Qing. But now I think he’s working with the Triad leaders, who work the slums and own more than you’d expect. They’re trying to go ‘straight’ but really it just means old tactics with better lawyers. And they’re invested in this election, because it would mean they would have a finger on the scales in Republic City and with that, the rest of the world. They want money, and they want as much of it as they can grab with both hands, and someone else’s severed hands too,” Katara spat.</p><p>Sokka raised an eyebrow; he knew Katara was a powerful, dangerous woman, but he hadn’t seen her speak with this much venom about anyone except the man who had destroyed their lives so long ago.</p><p>“And they’ve done some obvious killing recently. Bad ones. Triad burns on the victims left in city parks, mutilations, disfigurations, all the signs of torture. And this is torture I’ve seen before, a long time ago…” Katara slowed down at the end of that sentence, letting the words hang in the air, but Sokka knew.</p><p>“Her? Here? <em>Now?</em>” he said, stubbing his cigarette out in a porcelain ashtray with unnecessary force.</p><p>“Yes,” Katara said grimly. “Her.”</p><p>“I think things have gone too far already then. I’ll start today.”</p><p>“I thought you would.”</p><p>**** </p><p>The ferry ride was cool, but he missed his father’s ships’ rolling and pitching with the sea. He knew it was alive when he was on one of his tribes’ proudest creations, and the ferry took most of that away. The spray was refreshing, and he smoked a cigarette thinking about what he had to do.</p><p>First, he’d find a place to stay that would let him have a base of operations in town. Then he would rent three other locations and move between them during the day. The money from his company’s dividends was plenty for years of living like a dilettante, and it made life easy in a way Sokka found distasteful if useful.</p><p>Second, he needed some new clothes. He’d packed for a weekend and had already been planning on spending some cash at the Republic City tailors market in Coralstand Street. That could come this afternoon.</p><p>Third, he needed information. He’d pay a visit to an old comrade in high places, then put out some feelers and a message for someone he hadn’t seen since right after he’d fallen into drink to forget what had happened in the final battles clearing out hardcore Fire Nation soldiers who reminded him of Admiral Zhao all too well.</p><p>Fourth, he would set up some meetings as businessman Sokka on a long, much-needed vacation while new work was undertaken across the world as his corporation continued its mission to better the world, and incidentally make money hand over fist.</p><p>As he stepped off the ferry, he listened to the crowd’s roar and looked up at the high buildings that metal benders had made easily accessible. More skeletons, each seemingly bent on outdoing the one beside, rose like gaunt soldiers in the sky. Sokka smiled. He was back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Clothing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The apartments were easy to find; Republic City had enough nobles and wealthy coming in that already furnished and well-appointed rooms were available for the taking. He put down three months rent on three of them, his checks signed with a flourish through a company line of credit that went to his own accounts, but would make tracing the rooms to him slightly more difficult. He also told each buildings’ manager his company would be using these rooms as offices while Brassica went public; agri-business is big business Sokka said, taking each key and leaving spares at the front desk in case with a big wink about “potential accompaniment.”</p><p>He snapped his cuffs; clothes next.</p><p>**** </p><p>Coralstand Street was a clothier’s fever dream come to life. In one of the biggest warehouses downtown, fabric merchants and tailors ran and screamed and cut and sewed in one massive ball of vibrant, insane knotting energy. Sokka loved the place like a second home and was well-known enough that merchants let him feel cloth quality and designers and tailors spoke to him like a colleague instead of what he was, which was a true, dyed-in-the-wool clotheshorse.</p><p>“So eight suits then? Two formal, six daily-wear, and then some harder wearing stuff in dark colors and grays? Plus some underwear and socks….hmm, alright, we can have that by evening all hemmed, pressed and ready for delivery. And if you step over here, we’ve been doing some experimenting with waterproofing you might enjoy….”</p><p>Lee Dan Hwa was the best tailor in the district. He knew it, Sokka knew it and everyone else did too. They had a long relationship together, but Sokka knew that for modern lines, Lee was the best in the world.</p><p>“See, we’re using wax on canvas, so it might be stiff but it keeps the wind, rain, snow, sleet and anything else a waterbender sees fit to whip at you off your skin,” Lee said, lifting a dark green, long-cut coat with big pockets and wide black buttons.</p><p>“Not quite lionseal leather, but I could see the uses. Add this to my tab too if you would,” Sokka said, trying on the coat and snapping his cuffs again. He admired himself in the mirror while Lee looked critically at the coat and his assistant totted up the numbers.</p><p>A trip to the cobblers to get a pair of leather boots and a new pair of dress shoes and Sokka was content and happy. Clothes shopping always made him happy, and he’d picked up a new watch that told the moon’s phases even though in the dark times he knew when it would be bright or black outside when he left the bar or stumbled out of his hut. He simply admired the little mechanical gears that made the hands tick so perfectly; he’d buy one in silver and whalebone for Katara for her birthday this year.</p><p>He walked smoothly out of the market, new coat flapping in the early autumn breeze. Thankfully a cold front had killed the heat from the day before, so he felt happy and free walking through the city. But although a mugger might think him an easy, obvious target, the more discerning, or the less stupid one, could see that Sokka’s eyes roved in swift patterns up and down the sidewalk and street, looking hard into alleys and checking hands for weapons with the practiced look of either a cop or a warrior. He had worked himself back into hardened shape after he pulled away from the well, still staying as close to combat-ready as a company leader could without doing any more fighting than sparring at the White Lotus lodge he belonged to. But the watching mugger would now notice Sokka slowing down and placing each step with care and control. Then they would have seen him slip into an unregarded doorframe that seemed to open into nothing. If they had gotten closer, they would have discovered a very burly doorman who would have politely told them they needed to be known at this establishment before they could enter. Had they pushed, they would have found themselves waking up several hours later to the concerned faces of nurses at Republic City Hospital with their body bound in whippy strands of what appeared to be discarded construction steel.</p><p>****</p><p>“Bouncers keep getting bigger huh?”</p><p>“And your mouth has stayed the same size this whole time.”</p><p>“Long time no see, Toph.”</p><p>“I’ve never seen you Sokka.”</p><p>“……..”</p><p>The Blind Bandit was probably the most exclusive drinking establishment in Republic City, if not the world. Toph had a sense of humor that was blunter than a hammer, so naming her bar after herself and then telling no one the said name of the bar was unlike her. But, living in the big city was something different for Toph Beifong, scion of the Golden Boar Conglomerate and the wealthiest woman in the world. Blind? Yes. The most powerful earthbender the world had ever seen? Avatar Kyoshi might not disagree. But running a bar was what Toph wanted to do in Republic City, advisors be damned. Let them run the Boar, and leave her to deciding who was worthy to drink in her place.</p><p>Sokka was seated in Toph’s office, a modestly dressed office without pictures or ornament except for one piece of shimmery black stone and another poster of a criminal called “The Runaway” who looked a lot like the woman who was sitting, barefoot, in front of Sokka and throwing back a glass of gin with no regard for the burn. Sokka sipped tea with care.</p><p>“The rundown?”</p><p>“If you please.”</p><p>“Triads or capital first?”</p><p>“Dealers choice.”</p><p>Toph belched, picked up the bottle and poured another shot.</p><p>“You still never miss,” Sokka said, pulling out another cigarette.</p><p>“Duh.”</p><p>Toph was as keyed in to the goings on of the Republic City underworld as any criminal, or cop, for that matter. Sokka remembered Aang suggesting Toph be the police chief of Republic City; Toph had thought about it for longer than he expected, but turned Aang down and just said she’d be available when she chose to be available, not because it was her job. Sokka could see what Aang had wanted, but Toph was always someone operating in the gray edges of the law. And decency, for that matter.</p><p>“The Triads are working with capital. Wu Qing has a lot of contact with the heads, and that contact is what Lee will bring out in spades if he’s elected. Qing’s middlemen are one old man named Tan Congee, a younger man named Din Cho and a young woman named Mai; you’ll recognize her right away cause she’s tried to kill both of us a dozen times before. Apparently she and Zuko did <em>not</em> get married and she came here and settled in very quickly as a deadly edge in any power struggle. She’s a knife for hire, and Wu Qing likes getting the best. Those three are the way in if you want to do what I think you want to do and expose Qing and Lee at the same time. Got it?”</p><p>Sokka nodded and murmured a soft affirmation.</p><p>“Questions?” Toph had knocked back a third shot after she gave the rundown.</p><p>“One. Have you heard anything about…her, being around?”</p><p>Toph barked a laugh that didn’t sound humorous at all and poured another tall shot with unerring precision.</p><p>“Oh, oh I’ve heard a wolf is out on the streets, that another <em>oni</em> has come to Republic City, that the spirits are angry, that the demons are taking out their displeasure for this city unbalancing the world,” Toph said, ticking off the rumors on her fingers. She took the shot and grimaced, but not at the alcohol burn. “Yeah, she’s here.”</p><p>Sokka breathed in deeply and desperately wanted a drink he could not have. So she was here. The woman who had nearly destroyed the Avatar, peace and could have brought the entire world to its knees so completely it might have never been fixed.</p><p>“That is… not good.”</p><p>“Oh, really?” Toph said, barking a laugh again.</p><p>“The last time Katara faced her, she nearly killed Zuko. She broke out of prison and killed everyone in it on the way out. We followed her for a while but then she just vanished and the Fire Nation holdouts were just laying waste to everything and things were so fragile…” Sokka breathed in deeply again, eying the gin with longing.</p><p>“Not today Water Boy,” Toph said, sensing his gaze on the bottle.</p><p>“Well, this certainly complicates things.”</p><p>“Yeah, duh.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Speeches</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was drizzling when he stepped out of the Bandit. Republic City’s famed fog was already throwing halos around the bright new streetlights powered by one of Sokka’s company’s more ingenious pieces of machinery. He felt a brief spark of pride when he saw them. Using lightning-bender theory as its power source had been a thought that came to him suddenly after he’d traveled to Caldera City in the middle of a bad thunderstorm, and what came of it made Republic City unlike any other in the world.</p><p>He pulled his new coat tight and raised the collar to his ears. As he walked, he lit a cigarette, the pop of the match muffled by the rising fog. So, she was back. This certainly changed the game and he might need to let Zuko know, which meant Suki could be on her way — but no, that might put her in danger and even if things were … complicated … he couldn’t put her in more danger than she already was as the head of the Fire Lord’s Palace Guard.</p><p>The cigarette tip glowed softly as he walked and ran his mind over what else Toph had told him, sitting behind her custom-made granite desk.</p><p>
  <em>“The other one is here too; Twinkle Toes Lite, who I know you got history with. Like half the women in the world.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Thanks Toph, always glad to know you keep track of my comings and goings.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t flatter yourself. I like to know what other danger you might be putting me in too, you know. Watch out for Cho; he’s a good swordsman, and Congee is one of the best criminal organizers I’ve ever seen. Crafty like a coyote-fox and twice as mean as a mooselion.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You’re using a lot of animal metaphors.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’ve tried to expand my worldview, Sokka.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What, with reading?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“……………”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Sorry.”</em>
</p><p>So, Ty Lee was here too. Sokka smiled sardonically to himself. Even better. She was always something of a mystery, showing up for a weekend or evening here and there and then taking off again without a goodbye. He’d heard she was working in some new Airbending Carnivale that traveled the world and gave shows and told the lore of the Airbending Nomads that way. Aang approved heartily of the venture and even took part in the very first display. He’d managed to knock the entire tent down with an airblast because he was so excited about the whole thing. Sokka had seen her there, and she had seen him there, and one thing led to another… and well, she didn’t always wear just pink anymore. But she and Mai were wildcards no matter what, and with Azula involved, Sokka was going to be careful.</p><p>
  <em>“You should also check in with Zuko. I let him know I’d heard some things a month or two back and haven’t heard boo from him yet. That means our Burned Boy is cooking something up himself. Be aware.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Ex-Dai Li or something else?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Guess.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You never can tell with him.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Then I’ll let it be a surprise too. I have a tingling feeling though. It could be very, very fun.”</em>
</p><p>Toph always liked letting words like that hang in the air. She enjoyed it when people squirmed, Sokka thought. He might need her later if he had to do what he thought he might.</p><p>As he walked, he heard the crowd change from the silence of rain-damped commuting to an angry buzzing with certain “yeahs” amplified from the whole communal body. He straightened up and looked at where the sound was coming from. A man had set up outside a factory and was expounding on what sounded like were the virtues of a strong union.</p><p>“…The workers should gather the sweat of their own labor and spin that into gold for themselves! The capitalists just want that sweat to fall on the floor and to keep the gold for themselves! Our rights are ours! The Avatar has said all men are equal, but the capitalists do not believe that! If we band together we can take our rights into our own hands! Your sweat will be your own! For your own work! Your own gold! Your own home! Your family’s home! Your children’s home!”</p><p>The man was working himself into a lather. He spoke with the conviction of a true believer, Sokka thought, and that made him someone who you should fact-check before believing. He got closer to take a look at the man, but before he could get closer an angrier ripple moved through the crowd. A group of heavyset and burly men dressed in the colors of the factory owner’s company were shoving the crowd aside and now walked up to the speaker, leering at him with the look of men who acted with impunity their whole lives because they were bigger, stronger and meaner than everyone else around them.</p><p>“The worker is for the worker! Not the capitalist! Never the—”</p><p>“Hem, hem.”</p><p>“—Capitalists will steal—”</p><p>“Hem, hem.”</p><p>“—take—”</p><p>“Excuse me, did you hear me?”</p><p>The speaker stopped, off-balance in surprise at the speaker’s tone of voice. Sokka had seen the man tense his body in preparation for the beating and saw the gleam in his eye brighten before; he wanted to be a martyr, Sokka guessed. Made sense, but he could also tell the thin old man in front of the guards was not going to let that happen in the way he thought it would.</p><p>“I’m Mr. Congee. I help run this establishment and would like to speak with you about this gold you speak of. I believe it would be better if you and I had a conversation inside?” the old man, dapperly dressed in a black suit, carrying a cane and wearing a heavy felt hat said.</p><p>Sokka now guessed this was Tan Congee, one of Qing’s go-betweens with the Triads. The man had a sense of himself, that was for sure. But Sokka could also see he was a razor in a hat-brim; a dangerous weapon that could be pulled out whenever and used to slice your opponent into permanent darkness.</p><p>The speaker was stunned. The crowd, apparently mostly workers who knew who Congee was, were murmuring and the edges were starting to fall away into the mist.</p><p>“I… I don’t have to!” the man said, half-heartedly shouting as he saw the crowd begin to disperse with the quiet silence of the truly frightened.</p><p>“Oh, of course not. We would never presume our hospitality upon a man with such undue forthrightness!” Congee said, pleasant but also asserting that being forthright was the least of his tools of coercion.</p><p>“I…I would prefer not to.”</p><p>“Well, that is all fine and good then. Please leave this establishment’s square then if you have nothing to say to me or the company… or its workers,” Congee said.</p><p>“I… shall.”</p><p>Congee clapped his hands, his dapper figure animated with apparent joy.</p><p>“Wonderful! Thank you for your cooperation.”</p><p>The heavy men behind him all smiled in unison at that. The speaker took to his heels with a better turn of speed than Sokka would have guessed.</p><p>Sokka walked again homeward, but three alleys down the street, a hand grabbed the crook of his arm and another strong hand closed over his mouth, pulling him into the darkness.</p><p>“Don’t say anything,” Toph said under her breath.</p><p>Sokka rolled his eyes as he walked backward into the alley. Toph took her hand off his mouth as soon as they were both tucked into a crevice in the wall that Toph had effortlessly smoothed into a pair of seats facing across from each other.</p><p>“I’m positive you were watched as soon as you left my place,” Toph told him, leaning back into the wall like it was a fine couch in a palace. “I felt some vibrations following you out and keeping a watcher’s distance back. I thought I’d come and find you before you did anything too stupid.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Sokka said, slightly irritated at the cloak and dagger routine. “Now, did it have to be so brusque?”</p><p>“No, but who do you think I am Water Boy?” Toph said, laughing quietly. “I can get you back to your place. There are tunnels all throughout the city that I’ve been working on since I moved here. I only know they’re there, so we can get to your place without any issue. That’ll keep you out of sight, but I think you’ll need me more than I thought you would.”</p><p>“Mayhaps,” Sokka said. “…wait, did you say you have a network of secret tunnels under the city??”</p><p>“Yeah, what of it?”</p><p>“Oh… nothing.”</p><p>“Well, then follow me.”</p><p>****</p><p>The tunnels were dark, but Toph had left markers noting meter-lengths on the wall just in case she’d ever needed to bring someone down here who was “light-impaired,” as she called it. They got back to the basement of his apartment building faster than he’d expected, and Toph opened a door in the wall with exaggerated politeness.</p><p>“Meet me by the docks tomorrow morning at dawn. I think there might be something there we need to check,” she said and closed the door behind her with a derisive bending motion.</p><p>Sokka sighed. Some things never change.</p><p>As he made his way upstairs, winking at the doorman on the way up, he considered his options. Working with Toph was something he’d considered; she was a human lie detector and more dangerous than he could ever hope to be, but was also something of a loose firebender. He was weighing his options and thinking about Congee when he got to his room. The key turned, but the lock was already open. Sokka tensed; already? They’d gotten in the same day he bought the damn place. He felt in his pockets for a short cosh he carried that was loaded with lead; being a businessman meant potential conflicts, and being a warrior meant he liked having an extra blunt frame of mind if those flared up too hot.</p><p>He opened the door silently and slipped into the room with a hunter’s tread; his eyes adjusted to the gloom, but he could tell a lamp was on in the living room that overlooked the sea. He kept close to the walls, and looked around the corner.</p><p>A figure, dressed in a tight-fitting black silk dress embroidered with a pink dragon up the left side was smoking a cigarette in a long holder by the window. Sokka relaxed slightly.</p><p>Slightly.</p><p>“Long time no see, Ty Lee,” he said, standing up.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Dinner for Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ty Lee had always reminded Sokka of a flying creature. Bird? Yes, she was always energetic and chirpy. But there was something so frictionless about her body moving through the air. It almost felt like she was a lionseal swimming beneath the ice, full of danger but beautiful enough you wanted to run your hands all over it to see if they’d slip off it like boots on clear ice. He still remembered her chi-blocking fighting style and her acrobatics. Her smile too, which she now turned on with the radiance of a noon-day sun.</p>
<p>“Sokka! It’s so good to see you again!” the woman who had broken into his room said, her voice high and chipper.</p>
<p>“Yeah…it’s good to see you too, Ty Lee. So… why are you in my apartment?” Sokka said, putting his hand back into his coat pocket, but still holding onto the cosh for comfort.</p>
<p>“Oh, well I heard one of my favorite boys was in Republic City, so I knew I <em>must</em> go and see him!” Ty Lee said, taking a smooth drag from the cigarette. Sokka could now see her lips were painted a deep coral pink. He wondered why he knew the shade so exactly.</p>
<p>“Well, that’s nice. But couldn’t you have, you know, sent a message first?” Sokka said, “or waited outside the room?”</p>
<p>“Now why would I do that? You and I have shared space before!” Ty Lee said with a wink Sokka would call lascivious and Suki would call a signal to fight.</p>
<p>“You know, I can’t disagree there, but I think you and I should go and grab a meal or drink. I’ve just moved in here and am not prepared to offer our famed Southern Water Tribe hospitality as of yet,” he said.</p>
<p>“Oh, you’re so funny! Of course! There’s a <em>wonderful</em> place at the top of the new Republic Tower that serves the most <em>divine</em> Fire Nation coastal fare. I <em>know</em> you would love it!” Ty Lee said, moving so swiftly Sokka could barely track her as she pressed herself into his chest.</p>
<p>“Now,” Ty Lee said sweetly, removing the cigarette holder from her mouth, “I think you might want to leave Mr. Nighty-Night here while you and I are out on the town, hmm?”</p>
<p>Her hand had moved into his pocket and liberated his cosh with a movement so fast the air hissed. Sokka gave her a crooked smile as she waved it like a handkerchief in front of his face.</p>
<p>“I think that could be arranged,” he said.</p>
<p>****</p>
<p>Unagi was certainly the kind of place Sokka enjoyed. It had waiters dressed sharply in color-coordinated outfits, a maître d who had the haughtiness of a young prince and a view that was breath-taking beyond the tall glass walls. Even in fog Republic City gave off a vibrancy that showed itself through the yellows, reds, blues and greens that lit the fog below in a palette of swirling water color.</p>
<p>The food was exceptional as well. Sokka had subsisted on enough raw things in his time to know that most food needed to be cooked. But at Unagi, the gemlike colors of unexpected fishes on moist, airy rice served with geometric exactitude appealed to his aesthetic nature. Plus, he hadn’t eaten since this morning with Katara, so the taste was intensified by hunger.</p>
<p>After the meal, Sokka sipped tea while Ty Lee was swirled a glass of beautiful red wine from a year Sokka knew was the best in the past two decades. He was paying, but he appreciated he was at least paying for quality.</p>
<p>They’d spoken lightly of former moments, of the city and of other nothings. But Ty Lee had looked out the window for a long time as she swirled her wine, and Sokka knew enough to let her be. She was deciding something.</p>
<p>“Have you been to Caldera City recently?” she asked him suddenly, leaning forward and setting the wine down. She rested her perfect chin on her hands and Sokka noted the change in posture as a farmer would note a band of black clouds suddenly appearing on the horizon.</p>
<p>“I have,” he said.</p>
<p>“Then you must have noticed some of the poorer people looking… different,” Ty Lee said, her voice no longer chipper or breathy but clear and steady.</p>
<p>“I do remember thinking there were many of them who seemed more out of it than usual,” he said, non-committally. There had been a lot of people who seemed half-dead on the street, that others had just walked over with barely suppressed shudders. He wondered why Zuko’s healers hadn’t gathered them up for treatment, but had to leave before he could ask.</p>
<p>“A new drug’s been released on the market. It’s potent, more potent than anything they could get out of the red firepoppies the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation use for medical uses and others use to smoke and forget. This is that but a thousand times stronger. Caldera City was where it was first released. Do you get the picture?” Ty Lee said this in the same tone as before.</p>
<p>Sokka nodded.</p>
<p>“And let me guess, that was just the first batch? And there’s going to be more released here? And this is a Triad deal first and foremost?” Sokka said, a weary note in his voice. Already the world was turning to eat itself, so soon after they’d fought and lost so much.</p>
<p>“Good, you are just as smart as I remember,” Ty Lee said, her eyes not leaving Sokka’s face. “But you should think harder.”</p>
<p>Sokka smiled and sipped his tea.</p>
<p>“Her?”</p>
<p>Ty Lee was not smiling.</p>
<p>“Her.”</p>
<p>“I thought you two reconciled?” Sokka said.</p>
<p>“You can’t reconcile with someone who doesn’t have a soul, Sokka. Azula would have been Ozai except even more competent. And that would have destroyed everything. So now she’s doing it through back channels, and while she might not have the same level of power at her fingertips she also doesn’t have tradition, a Nation, or anything else to stop her from breaking everything she can as thoroughly as she can,” Ty Lee said.</p>
<p>“I think I see.”</p>
<p>“I hope you do, Sokka, I hope you do.”</p>
<p>****</p>
<p>Sokka hailed a rickshaw for Ty Lee. As they waited under the awning of Republic Tower’s main entrance, she moved closer to him for warmth. Sokka tensed for a moment and then relaxed. Ty Lee noticed and gave him an impish smile as she snuggled herself under his arm.</p>
<p>“It’s been a while since anything like this has happened,” she said with a sigh as Sokka laughed.</p>
<p>“Oh, please, you’re travelling around the world all the time. What could stop you from finding anyone you wanted?” he said, shifting his weight as the rickshaw driver pulled to the curb.</p>
<p>“I’m here for a while. Come and see me at the Hotel d’Chan when you need to; and you will, I already know,” she said, skipping an answer as she stepped into the rickshaw’s enclosed cab.</p>
<p>“Oh, and Sokka,” she said too quiet for the driver to hear. He bent his head closer to her.</p>
<p>“Don’t get killed too fast, OK?”</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Locks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the delay! Blame it on it all, I guess?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sokka got back to his room and told the front desk he wanted the newest Chu locks installed tomorrow morning and for them to hold the key in the safe in the manager’s office until he retrieved them that evening. He did a quick but thorough check of his apartment to see if Ty Lee had left any surprises, but finding none, he shrugged out of his clothes and stepped into the shower.</p><p>The hot water was something he had learned to appreciate. While he was a polar man at heart, he did love the amenities of the big city. He placed his forehead against the white tile and let the heat work the tension from his shoulders. So, drugs about to be released stronger than what anyone had seen so far, Azula running the operation and potentially working with Wu Qing, who was trying to get Lee elected so he could control how Republic City functioned and could… what? Use the drugs to make his workers more docile? Was that where this was going? Sokka couldn’t think that would work. Qing always seemed to be someone incapable of having fun or letting anyone else have fun either, so drugs wouldn’t appeal to him. A control freak like him would want to make his grip tighter, and making people addicts made them docile but that backfired just as easily. Azula would use that though. Sokka already knew she would destroy Qing and use Lee. She was too utterly competent to let them control anything.</p><p>He got out and dried himself with a surprisingly fluffy towel. He looked at himself in the mirror. His fingers touched a scar on his abdomen that had come a long time ago, while he was out fighting the hardcore remnants of the Fire Nation Azula had fled to after she’d fought Katara and Zuko and lost. One man who was good with a sword had gotten him and had nearly finished him too if Zuko hadn’t burned him alive before the blade could fall. His fingers moved across his chest and touched his back. He was covered with scars, in all honesty, something women always commented on and ran their hands over almost to see if they were real. He could never decide if he liked that.</p><p>As he stretched out on the furs Katara had sent to his apartment to use as a bed, he wondered about Suki for the first time in a while. She was working for Zuko, but he wondered if Toph had heard about her coming to Republic City because of all of this. As he fell asleep, he saw a white mask come out of the dark like a koi from the bottom of a pond.</p><p>****</p><p>The fog was so heavy in the morning it was a wonder anyone was able to move. Toph, of course, worried less about fog than most.</p><p>Sokka felt the water condense on his wolf-tail and drip down onto his neck. He smiled grimly as he followed Toph into the darkness of skeletal cranes and bending platforms where water and earthbenders moved ships into dock and loaded and unloaded them, keeping trade moving briskly. Republic City was already the biggest single port by tonnage in the world, Sokka knew, and that was just the beginning. Railways were coming from Ba Sing Se that would connect the entire Earth Kingdom like one giant steel web, and since his engineers had designed the engines, he knew those rails would be moving swiftly and carrying a lot of goods too. The place was full of money and people, and he knew that would cause issues.</p><p>“Stop,” Toph said softly. “We should see it from here. Did you bring a weapon?”</p><p>“Just a cosh,” Sokka said.</p><p>Somehow Toph made an eyeroll audible.</p><p>“Honestly, for someone who can’t bend you think so highly of your combat ability,” she whispered, scoffing.</p><p>“I picked up a lot when I studied with the Kyoshi Warriors!” Sokka whispered back, indignant.</p><p>“Sure, sure, do you have a combat fan too?” Toph said.</p><p>“As a matter of fact, I do,” Sokka said.</p><p>“Mmmhmmm,” Toph hummed. “Now shh, they’re here.”</p><p>Sokka tried to make out the shapes moving in the fog. The sky had just begun to turn gray in the east, and if he breathed slowly and concentrated it appeared a half-dozen men were working surreptitiously to open a large wooden shipping container and were now moving packages to a waiting vehicle idling a few meters away.</p><p>“What? People unship things all the time,” Sokka said, watching carefully.</p><p>“Not <em>these</em> things,” Toph said, and with a motion too fluid to be just an earthbending movement she caused the morning to explode into beautiful chaos.</p><p>When the dust settled, Toph walked forward like a little bull mooselion, head forward and hands balled into fists. Sokka could see she had trapped all the men and somehow blindfolded and gagged them with the weapons they were apparently loading into the truck, which was also out-of-commission as its wheels were all facing 90 degrees the wrong way.</p><p>She stepped up to the closest of her now captive audience and pulled a package from his hand; bright knives and other nasty items of street-warfare clattered on the ground. She moved to the second and grabbed a smaller package, hefted it and tossed it at Sokka without looking.</p><p>He caught it awkwardly, still in awe that Toph’s talents had gotten even more unbelievable in the year he hadn’t seen her. But he opened it and saw what was inside was a number of vials, all containing a dark liquid that just looked malicious. He nodded and jerked his head up as Toph continued down the line. She was twisting the implements with subtle movements, rendering them useless, only ready for the smelter.</p><p>As they walked away, Toph gave a nasty little chuckle.</p><p>“I don’t like weapons around my face, and that includes being inside this city,” she said. “But I think that’s what we came for this morning.”</p><p>“We?” Sokka said, cocking an eyebrow as he lit the day’s first cigarette.</p><p>“Yeah, I could tell you were going to be incompetent as a detective, so I figured I’d lend a hand.”</p><p>Sokka sighed. Things could never be simple, could they.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Doc</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The trip back to the Blind Bandit didn’t take long. Sokka held the package closely all the way there. Once inside, with the lights turned on, he placed the paper filled with vials on the bartop and looked at them more closely. The liquid was so dark as to be nearly black and moved in a sludgy fashion. He tapped a vial to check it and held it up to the light, looking for markings, but there were none he could see on the glass or on  their metal caps.</p><p>“Toph, can you feel anything on these? They look clean, almost medical,” Sokka said, handing her a vial.</p><p>Toph ran her fingers around the vial swiftly and shook her head.</p><p>“No, they’re clean. We should figure out what exactly is in them first. And I know a guy who can help with that,” she said.</p><p>Sokka paused.</p><p>“A chemist? How do you know a chemist who won’t sell this information to Azula’s informants?” Sokka asked, incredulous.</p><p>Toph shrugged at that.</p><p>“Look, I run the most exclusive bar in town. You gotta know a doctor who can take care of things quietly, otherwise you don’t stay exclusive,” she said. “Come on.”</p><p>She took two vials from the package and  then did a complex series of earth and metalbending motions to open a small but obviously heavy safe from behind the counter out into the open. With a few more movements, she opened the safe, slid the package in, and slammed the whole thing back into the wall with surprising violence.</p><p>“I add some protection that no metalbender but me could hope to undo, so don’t worry about the rest. But the Doc will need these two for comparison,” Toph said, walking towards the door. “Turn the lights off on the way out Water Boy.”</p><p>Sokka sighed again. Well, she did get things done in style, you had to admit.</p><p>****</p><p>The Doc’s office was really just an apartment in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Republic City. It was clean and already looked overwashed, but Sokka could tell these were most likely the people who lived and died working for people like Qing, but at the least, they could live with pride.</p><p>Toph stamped up to a door with black letters that promised HEALTH, PEACE, JOY. Sokka was unsure any sawbones who didn’t ply his trade in the open could bring any of those particular items, but if Toph trusted him, the man must be good.</p><p>A middle-aged woman opened the door and smiled when she saw Toph. Her glance looked at Sokka with suspicion, but Toph shooed her away saying “he’s fine, he’s with me and he doesn’t need any wounds healed… <em>yet</em>.”</p><p>Sokka smiled sheepishly at the woman, who rolled her eyes at Toph’s aggression. She looked Water Tribe, with wide blue eyes and the dark skin of his people. As he passed through the door he could tell his first impression was most likely the right one. Whale bone pendants hung from the roof and there were threadbare skins on the walls and furniture.</p><p>“What can I help you with Toph?” the woman said, walking to her kitchen and putting a kettle on the stove. “Any more broken bones that need to be set? Or is someone in need of a DT treatment out in the country with my brother? He does love to wring them out.”</p><p>“No, I need you to look at a couple of things for me and tell me what they are,” Toph said.</p><p>The woman raised her eyebrows. “Oh, what kind of things?”</p><p>“These.”</p><p>Toph raised the two vials and Sokka could feel the temperature in the room drop.</p><p>“Oh no,” the woman breathed.</p><p>“Do you recognize these?” Sokka said, surprised.</p><p>“Yes, yes I do. Put those on the table Toph, and do it carefully,” the woman said. “I’ll do a quick analysis in my lab, but I’d bet anything that’s Black Dragon.”</p><p>“Black Dragon? Seems like someone was being overly dramatic when they gave it that moniker,” Sokka said.</p><p>The woman looked at him like he was an idiot.</p><p>“Do you have any idea how potent this is? One of these vials is enough to incapacitate a quarter of the city and make them want another taste to the point where they will do anything to get it. This is the most dangerous substance in the world, sir,” she said, the “sir” coming out derisive and sharp.</p><p>Sokka raised his hands in what he hoped was a placating fashion.</p><p>“Ok, ok, I didn’t know. Where does it come from?” he asked.</p><p>“Did you get this from a harbor shipment?” the woman asked Toph.</p><p>“Yeah, caught it along with a lot of very sharp bits of metal too,” Toph said.</p><p>“Then it’s being made somewhere in the Fire Nation. Probably one of the southerly areas where there are a lot of firepoppy fields and too many hidden valleys to count. I’d guess this stuff is some of their best, if it’s coming to Republic City. I heard that Caldera City had already gotten a shipment of stuff that wasn’t as potent, and it still nearly wrecked them. Fire Lord Zuko put out a dragnet that swept most of it up and he’s made an example of any dealers he’s found, but I’d bet this is even worse,” the woman said, biting her lip as she looked at the two vials as if they were both deadly flying moth-vipers ready to strike.</p><p>“Check it then, Koha, we need to know and soon,” Toph said.</p><p>Koha nodded her head slowly. “I’ll see what I can do, but the best way to deal with this is to make sure it never gets out. I know you’ve dealt with issues like this before cause I’ve seen what happens to the people who try it, but this is even more important.”</p><p>Toph nodded.</p><p>“We know,” she said, and Sokka followed in her wake as she stepped back out into the street. Koha was still staring at the two vials with a look of hatred when he closed the door behind him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Warriors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Well, Ty Lee was right,” Sokka said as they turned toward the center of the city. Toph was leading and going away from the docks and towards the rising skyscrapers racing upward into the clouds. “There is going to be a drug trade here, and it’s gonna be bad.”</p><p>“And it’s coming from the Fire Nation too; that’ll be sure to ruffle some feathers,” Toph said.</p><p>Sokka had been thinking about that too.</p><p>“I’ll send a message to Zuko and ask about that. If it’s true, that’s a big deal. And what’s more, I wonder who’s running those fields. We stamped out most of the hardcore Azula supporters, but when they’re that fanatical they go to ground like a badgermole and you can’t winkle them out for love or money,” Sokka said.</p><p>Toph nodded.</p><p>“I’ll also set up a meeting with Qing; he’s been wanting in on my R&amp;D for years and that obsequious bastard would just love to talk my ear off about his company’s new factory lines,” Sokka continued. “Could help.”</p><p>“You do that and I’ll go chase down where Din and Congee are. Mai is going to be something else altogether and I think Zuko would want to know,” Toph said. “Put that in your message. I have to go see to some things in the skyscraper district, but let’s meet again tonight at the Boar.”</p><p>****</p><p>The woman moved with an assured grace like all warriors had. She prowled as she strode through the city, and most of the street-folk with common sense could tell she was not someone to be trifled with. She had watched this morning’s theatrics at the docks and she had also seen the two go into the home of what was most likely a back alley chemist and bone-setter. She smiled. Same as they ever were.</p><p>She shoved her hands into her pants’ pockets. The freedom of her old uniform was what she missed most about it, but she had to admit the new styles were quite useful as long as the tailor was reminded to add deep pockets and various other compartments to stow all the accoutrements of her trade; weapons, medicines, cuffs and new firebending dampers that she was still wary of using on a truly powerful foe. She did like the jacket plus shirt and tie combo. It felt very right, even if she did have to keep her makeup stowed away for ceremonial occasions, when the mask was a warning that anyone attempting to do anything whatsoever would not have the chance to use either their teeth or their hands for a very, very long time.</p><p>She’d been in the city for a couple of weeks, doing some more unusual body-guarding work. Zuko had been concerned about the drugs that had made their way to Caldera City and was already combing through the southern portion of the Fire Nation to find the makers. Black Dragon? She shook her head, her short hair brushing against her cheekbones. Dramatic, but not wrong. But now things would be even more complicated by Sokka being in town. He tended to break things, which was useful, but she had always found removal to be the easier route of dealing with problems. However, Sokka and Toph could be useful. She now needed to decide if she should let them in on the fact she was here and the bigger fact that the Fire Lord himself was on his way to deal with a delicately termed “loose familial bond” but that would have to wait until they did what they were going to. It could be fun joining forces again, and tormenting Sokka did have its pleasures…</p><p>She sighed. Kyoshi Island seemed very far away indeed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Meat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Qing’s offices were in the second tallest skyscraper in the city. Rumor had it he was already buying tenements in the northern neighborhoods, which stood a few dozen feet taller than the rest of the city to build the tallest skyscraper, something he had already done once but lost to a competitor a few years before. Sokka was shown in with the smooth speed of a prized guest, which he guessed he would be as Qing had offered to buy his company at least a dozen times in the past three years.</p><p>The décor was all brass and dark woods, with plush leather couches and seats scattered around the foyer to Qing’s top-floor office. Sokka stood at bored attention instead of sitting down, looking at the oil paintings depicting other dark scenes of the Earth Kingdom’s violent history in surprisingly gory detail. He was examining what appeared to be a long thread of viscera held on the edge of a sword and wondering how tensile intestines really were when Qing threw open his double doors and boomed out a greeting to him.</p><p>“Mr. Sokka! It is an honor to welcome you to my humble abode!” Qing gushed. He took Sokka’s hand in a platypus-bear sized hand and shook it roughly. Sokka smiled at the pressure Qing put into the grip. He had to hand it to the man, he knew how to sell a vision.</p><p>“Ah! I see you are looking at my most recent purchase! That is <em>The Sundering of the Fourth Kingdom</em>, by Wan Shi Fong. Cost me a pretty sack of coin at the latest auction. These paintings keep turning up more and more as the Fire Nation sends back goods from their oldest plunderings, something I’m surprised by to be sure, but they keep learning the owners are dead! Then they end up on the auction floor, and well, I do have an eye for the perfect or rare,” he said, noting the bloody painting Sokka had stopped to look at more closely. “Now please, come inside!”</p><p>Sokka trailed behind the powerfully built Qing. For someone who had managed to swindle most of the world out of money, business, land and goodwill in order to build his financial empire, he managed to always come off as a simple man with taste. Sokka knew that was a lie, and that Qing studied these things to become likable to the rich and powerful. He knew that could only happen with enough time at the top; then all the old sins would be forgiven by time and the fact the rest of the incestuous class was now compromised with loans or fat yearly dividends for investing in the company.</p><p>Qing now seated himself behind an enormous rosewood desk that had its back to a panorama of Republic City, a view worth a lot of money and probably blood, Sokka thought. The rest of the room was fitted out in the same kind of dark wood, leather, brass motif he’d seen in the foyer, except for a traditional painting on the side, hidden in a nook but easily visible. Two dragons, one red and one blue, twined around each other in a kind of serpentine embrace while flames danced around them. Qing nodded again.</p><p>“That’s Fire Nation. Found at an abandoned Fire Sage temple in a watertight case. Also expensive, but I had to engage a private buyer to get the privilege of its presence in my rooms. Now, what are you here to speak to me about my boy!” he boomed.</p><p>Sokka noted the “boy” comment and raised an internal eyebrow, as Qing was less than 10 years older than him.</p><p>“I was hoping to see your newest factory lines actually, but wanted to meet with you first to hear about how you’ve become so efficient in your mass production. My corporation could use that kind of speed,” Sokka said.</p><p>“Oh, you are! Well, I thought you were a man who understood efficiency!” Qing said, his eyes glinting with avarice.</p><p>“I’m particularly interested in how you treat your workers,” Sokka said more jovially than he felt. “How do you keep them working?”</p><p>Qing laughed without humor.</p><p>“Well, we show them the possibilities of a life outside the factory of course,” he said. “And I find that workers who care are the best to have on the lines. The rest is a matter of shifts of course as well as …”</p><p>Qing continued, but Sokka already knew the answer. Drugs were not going to make his workers more alert, or at least something like Black Dragon was going to make them work with any kind of ferocity that Qing avowed to value above all else. But then again if he was connected to Azula then there might be something he was missing.</p><p>“ … a quite fortitudinous deal with grain dealers selling me wholesale minus 10% per ton for the next five years!” Qing concluded, the avaricious glint in his eye now migrated to his gold rimmed tooth as he smiled at his own predatory business acumen.</p><p>“Ah, yes, grain is a key component of modern business; the commodity market has been a remarkable kind of gambling for the dangerously minded,” Sokka said, not missing a beat.</p><p>“True! Well, I must run now Sokka, but please feel free to make your presence known to me; I regularly dine at the local steakhouse where I have a private table. Your presence would grace it well,” Qing said, standing smoothly for a man of his bulk.</p><p>Sokka stood as well and proffered his hand across the plain of a desk.</p><p>“I might just do that; I do love meat,” he said, deadpan.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Answers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the long delay here! I was moving and doing a bunch of other life things so I'll be posting a couple more of these in the coming days.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sokka made his way back to his apartment. He sat down on his furs with a notebook and a pen and started writing. After a few minutes he got up to make tea and smoked a cigarette, blowing smoke out his window and listening to the whistle of the wind outside. The fog had blown away but another drizzly afternoon and evening was rolling in like clockwork. He sat down and wrote more, drawing lines from one note to another and flipped the page. Another cigarette. More pages filled with notes, but as it went on the lines between them became less and less frequent and Sokka leaned back on the furs and let loose a groaning sigh.</p><p>Nothing here made sense. Azula was around and that made the need for things to make sense all the more necessary. But all he could see was “Drugs—Money—Capital—Politics—Money.” Money was the denominator, but in this new world that was obvious. But the sense was what was eluding him. He knew he had a talent at thinking of new solutions to old problems, but he couldn’t find one for the oldest problem of all.</p><p>He rolled himself up to standing. The notebook went into his coat pocket as he got ready to meet Toph at the Blind Bandit again. The walk didn’t take too long, but he felt as if was being watched. He walked at an even pace, his eyes forward but his mind running through the checks he had placed on his scarred instincts. The fog was getting denser as evening turned to dusk and the lights were starting to turn on. People kept their heads down as the streets filled with white-collar workers making their way out of the banking district, and later on as factory workers filed out of their enormous warehouses onto dirtier, soot-coated streets. Sokka kept moving, going away from the Blind Bandit until he found what he was looking for.</p><p>The covered markets here always had activity; this wasn’t filled with Sokka’s favored fabric houses, but rather a mixture of ceramics, pig iron, wood and other raw materials carted in for the small artisans who had taken up several streets to craft their more rustic wares. He had strolled into the market but as soon as he was inside jinked and dodged across it with a turn of speed that moved him past porters and vendors hawking wares as if they were no more than smoke. After a minute of this he had managed to make his way to the other side of the market and out into the open where a new railcar was coming up the street at a good clip. He weighed his options for a split second before taking off again, coat-tails flapping like a seal-penguin and leapt onto the metal running board, holding tight to the wooden side as the railcar whistled its way into an intersection. He looked back to see if there was anyone he could see come blazing out of the market, but as the car turned the corner back toward the Blind Bandit, the only sight was the murmurating crowd rumbling behind him.</p><p>****</p><p>The bar was slowly filling outside her office, and Sokka had already heard some famous voices on the radio make their way across the room to what he guessed was a private booth.</p><p>“Do you want to do this the fun way or the not-fun way?” Toph asked.</p><p>“What’s the difference?” Sokka said, wary.</p><p>“One is legal and one is very much not.”</p><p>“Funny, legality never seemed to be an issue to you.”</p><p>“You’re the squeamish one, not me.”</p><p>“… I don’t know if that’s fair, but ok.”</p><p>“Congee is going to be hard to get alone; he lives in an apartment that’s surrounded by his bodyguards and is paid for by Qing’s money. Din will be easier, as he lives in a penthouse and enjoys his money more. I hear he brings those of negotiable affection back to his place regularly. Seems like he’s got some things to work out regularly too, as his penthouse is basically a revolving door for most of the middle-management of crime in this city. But, it’s got two things in our favor; bodyguards are only outside the penthouse and the man likes metal sculpture, too,” Toph said, ticking the two items off her fingers as if they would make what Sokka could plainly see was an insane plan workable. “That means I can get us in and I can end things permanently. But you do the talking.”</p><p>“So you’re suggesting we break in to a well-guarded penthouse to front a high-profile criminal liaison between the richest people in this city and the most dangerous people in this city? Admittedly those are probably closer to each other than most would guess, but at the same time, Toph …” Sokka said.</p><p>“When did you get so uncertain? I’ll show you how a bender gets a job done,” Toph said, visibly annoyed with Sokka’s caution. He stayed seated while she stomped out the door into the droning roar of the Blind Bandit. A minute later, she stomped back in and tapped her feet as he slowly stood up and followed her out the door with a measured pace.</p><p>“I had to finish my tea,” Sokka said mildly.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Toph huffed. “Just follow me.”</p><p>****</p><p>Sokka always admired Toph’s persona changes. She put them on like a glove and took them off with the absolute authority of the truly untouchable. Din’s apartment was at the top of a newer tower of them in the heart of Republic City, close to the trams and the bustling heart of things. Also close to what Toph had told Sokka were the more reputable houses of the men and women of negotiable affection. Din, for all his love of money and siding with the more cruel portion of Republic City’s boiling underclass was at least undiscriminating in his tastes, according to Toph’s unerring ear. As they stepped into the building, she took on the imperious velvet glove of the extremely wealthy.</p><p>“Young sir!” she rapped out, smacking a fan on the concierge’s desk with a staccato pattern of impatient money. “Young sir! A lady is awaiting your ministrations!”</p><p>An oily middle-aged man with obnoxiously sharp moustaches and the dark uniform of a butler stepped out into the battleground. Sokka eyed him up and down; definitely a company man, definitely not above taking a little bribe and definitely used to dealing with the more raucous moments of monied individuals like the woman he could see smacking his desk with the venom of a snubbed debutante.</p><p>“How can I assist you madame?” he said, his voice the exact kind of viscous syrup Sokka expected.</p><p>“I demand that my helper and I be shown a room!” Toph said, her voice somehow more imperious than before.</p><p>“Ah, well, it is quite late but if you come back tomorrow we do have a selection of rooms for a woman of your class to browse—” the man began to say, but Toph was already prying open his statement with a crowbar of pique.</p><p>“You have rooms open? Now? Then if you are indisposed, give my man their keys and he will show them to me himself!” Toph said, the fan rapping on the desk with pure malice.</p><p>“Well, lady, it is my job to do so,” the oily man said, slightly flustered.</p><p>“And I see you cannot do it! Butler, get the keys and do your duty!” Toph shouted.</p><p>Sokka began to move behind the desk, but the oily man’s eyes flitted around in a panic and he moved toward his office.</p><p>“Well, let me first call my manager to get permission,” he murmured, and then exited stage right back into his office. Sokka could hear a number being spun, but Toph whispered, “Let’s go,” before he could hear any kind of conversation.</p><p>She was already moving toward the stairs before Sokka got into step beside her.</p><p>“Stairs to third floor, elevator to 26<sup>th</sup>, then off, stairs again and then we get inside,” she murmured to Sokka, who was now feeling a familiar sense of déjà vu.</p><p>“And then?”</p><p>“Then we get some answers.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Break-in</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Toph was silent. Sokka kept watch down the hallway to run interference if anyone walked down the hallway and asked why a woman was laying on the ground with no shoes on and her very dirty feet pressed against the freshly painted walls. It had been three or four minutes and Sokka was starting to feel a bit nervous when Toph popped up, dusted herself off and started walking back toward the stairwell.</p><p>“Well?” Sokka said, catching up.</p><p>“Four are in there right now, two more standing guard outside. Two inside aren’t armed and it appears Din is currently preoccupied in the bedroom,” Toph said, pushing the door open. Sokka nodded. “I brought a couple of things we might need tonight. Put this on.”</p><p>He shoved a knit mask into her hand which she promptly put on backward.</p><p>“Eh, you don’t’ need your eyes, so fair,” Sokka said, pulling his on and adjusting it to his liking. “So all bending blazing?”</p><p>“All bending blazing,” Toph said.</p><p>“Good thing I brought the long blackjack then.”</p><p>****</p><p>The first things the guards noticed was an ominous creaking.</p><p>The second thing the guards noticed was the chandelier above them swaying, which caused their guard intuitions to twinge painfully.</p><p>The third thing the guards noticed was two people, one tall and one short, walking brazenly down the hallway from the stairwell, which was assuredly locked.</p><p>The fourth thing the guards noticed was the chandelier was now moving toward them in a way chandeliers connected to ceilings have no right to move, i.e. downward.</p><p>The fifth thing the guards noticed, coming to in a daze after a horrendous crash and screeching of metal, was that they were now hooped together like a barrel by the chandelier’s iron embrace, the metal lovingly tapered off around them and standing them up together.</p><p>The sixth thing the guards noticed was the taller one was pulling out a long baton with a well-taped grip and that really, he was an expert at turning out the lights as theirs went out.</p><p>****</p><p>Toph blew the door open with a dismissive flick of her wrist. Sokka carried his weighted baton like a sword, holding it high and walking on the balls of his feet as he moved into the spacious interior. The electric lights were blazing, reflecting off the glass walls and showing an expensively appointed interior with a sunken floor with scattered assortments of metal bits stuck together in serious ways that stunk of too-much preening, Sokka thought, but also offered excellent sightlines for the two guards who were now walking unperturbed toward Toph and him out of another heavy set of doors that shut with an ominous thump.</p><p>“A metalbender?” the one on the left said, raising an eyebrow. His face was slabby, all long edges and sharp turns. He settled into what Sokka knew was an earthbending fighting stance. “Delightful. Li Fong, take the other one.”</p><p>Li Fong nodded and Sokka saw one hand begin to smoke before a fireball ignited in his hand. Sokka tightened and loosened his grip on the blackjack. Toph turned her head to the Slab man and nodded. Sokka nodded too and as Toph began her first motions he began to race around her, sticking to the high ground as the firebender began his attack.</p><p>The first blast missed Sokka by a few inches, and he slid on the ground to avoid the second, which slammed into what must have been specially reinforced windows as they dissipated the heat and didn’t melt. The bender was watching him with the disinterest of the professionally employed bodyguard, but he was making an enormous amount of heat anyway. Sokka was already sweating under the mask. His best chance was to get close, but as he tensed to start the run, the floor began to shake violently.</p><p>Toph and the Slab had watched each other for a moment before Toph moved, gather and flinging a sculpture turned into a net at the man, who sidestepped smoothly and brought the net back around at Toph, the strips turned into a screaming set of spears. Under the mask Toph smiled; there were others with her skills, but what they would always need to be taught was that she was the first and greatest of metalbenders. She gathered two more sculptures as she moved down to the sunken floor and pounding her feet onto the white sand Din must have trucked up here from a Fire Nation island somewhere far, far away. One became a set of crude shield while the other became a serrated projectile she was now ripping through the air like a saw. The Slab reacted to this without batting an eye, flexing his arms and then catching the saw as it came round between his hands and slamming it, edged side first, into the ground. He brought it up and ripped it at Toph with a violent punch, causing her to block with the shield and shatter both. Now she smiled as the Slab was doing what she was planning to do next and rip up the floor.</p><p>Sokka watched in horror as the floor exploded between Toph and the Slab, with foot-and-a half thick I-beams rearing like cobras and clashing in showers of sparks between the two metalbenders. Li Fong was not surprised however, and managed to singe Sokka’s coat when he rolled belatedly to the right as another blast smacked into the glass behind him. Li Fong still looked almost bored, and that enraged Sokka. Another bender looking at him as if he was nothing more than a child? He gritted his teeth and sprang right again, closer to the door the two had come out of. The firebender coolly followed him with blasts, finally stopping Sokka from advancing with a blazing kick that left a wall of fire between him and the door. That could work in his favor, Sokka thought, turning and cutting toward the firebender, who had moved up onto the floor with Sokka. The metalbenders were clanging in ear-splitting shrieks of tortured metal, and Sokka could see that Toph would win, but the firebender did as well. He turned from Sokka momentarily and shot a blast of fire at Toph’s unprotected side. Sokka cried out, but Toph had already sensed the movement and brought a beam between her and the fire, splitting it like a log.</p><p>Sokka was now close to the firebender and struck at his side, but the firebender moved like water, firing at Sokka as he danced backward. Sokka rolled backward again and got up on one knee, watching the firebender begin his next set of moves. Sokka pulled the oldest trick in his book from its sheath on his back and slung a boomerang at the firebender, cracking into his temple and dropping him like a sack of potatoes on the ground. He heard Toph grunt and saw the Slab fly up in the air on a steel beam that did, in fact, wrap around him like a feathered cobra constrictor, squeezing him into unconscious submission.</p><p>Toph sighed and stood up, rolling her shoulders. “They are getting better, but they still aren’t me. Boomerang work?”</p><p>Sokka nodded. “Yup. Now is Din waiting scared in there or no?”</p><p>Toph paused a moment. “It seems like he’s … already tied up?!”</p><p>She and Sokka rushed to the entry in unison, but before Toph could remove it the heavy wooden doors opened inward and another old acquaintance stepped through. Sokka groaned and felt the bottom of his stomach drop out from under him.</p><p>“Godsdammit Suki, do you know how many laws we just broke?” he said, ripping his mask off viciously.</p><p>Suki looked around at the room and the unconscious benders with a leisurely eye.</p><p>“No, but I think you’ll be breaking some more before I’m done with you here,” she said, her eyes flashing at Sokka.</p><p>Toph chuckled.</p><p>“Oh man, you are <em>done</em> for Sokka.”</p><p>He sighed. He seemed to be sighing a lot these days, but then again, there was a lot to sigh about.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Violence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Just gonna warn you guys, this one has a little bit more squickiness in terms of violence. Heads up is all.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Toph and Sokka followed Suki through the doors where they found Din strapped down to a wooden chair, gagged with what appeared to be silk ties. Sokka scowled at the setup and then scowled harder as he noticed what Suki was wearing.</p><p>“Did you come up here as a woman of negotiable affection?” he said, with malice.</p><p>Suki looked down at her dress, which was a deep purple and slit to the thigh.</p><p>“Jobs have demands Sokka, something you should well remember,” she responded, her voice neutral.</p><p>Sokka gave a “Ha!” and then walked up to Din, whose shirt was open and had a long welt already darkening on his temple.</p><p>“When’s he going to wake up?” he asked, looking around the room.</p><p>“Soon. I’m guessing he’s coming around shortly. The four outside taken care of? I heard Toph, but looking at your coat it appears you <em>did</em> in fact engage!” Suki said, an ironic tone creeping into her voice.</p><p>Sokka ignored her and started rifling through Din’s room with a seasoned hand.</p><p>“Already searched it smart guy. Nothing useful left here, just a lot of expensive ties,” Suki said, and tilted her head toward the tied-up man. “But it looks like our subject is waking up.”</p><p>Din, whose head had been slumped onto his chest, looked around groggily before his eyes found the three in front of him and betrayed a sense of panic.</p><p>“Alright sir, I have some questions you’ll need to answer for me. Can you do that?” Suki purred, causing Sokka to “Tch!” in annoyance.</p><p>Din didn’t move but just looked at Suki. She sighed.</p><p>“They always get like this after you put them out for a little bit; men never change,” she said, shaking her head so her pageboy cut flared. She walked over to him and undid his gag.</p><p>“Who—wha—guards, guards!” he cried out, his voice dampened by what Sokka guessed was likely a concussion. Suki tutted.</p><p>“Do you really think they’d just come in like that? Honestly, it’s like you don’t even think beyond your basest appetites, Din,” she said. “Now, I have some questions for you that you’ll need to answer otherwise … well, let’s just say I have some specific skills. Hmm?”</p><p>Din, already showing signs of being dazed, hung his head on his chest again. Suki chucked his chin up with a thumb and forefinger.</p><p>“Now, I’ll take that as a yes. So, where do you meet your masters, Din? Where do they tell you to go?” Suki said, her voice sweet as honey and in Sokka’s experience, as foreboding as a black line of clouds on the sea’s horizon.</p><p>Din muttered something.</p><p>“Oh, I should go fuck myself? Well, Din, that’s what you were trying to do and look how that turned out for you?” she said, pleasant still. “Where do you go to roll over like a dog Din? Where do you go to get a treat when you do what you’re supposed to? Hmm?”</p><p>Din tried to turn his head away, but Suki snapped it back to look at her. Her other hand was resting lightly on his shoulder now but one finger was already exerting pressure on a spot in-between his collarbone and ribs, causing him to wince. Suki then pressed down once, hard. Din screamed.</p><p>“Where do you go Din? Where’s your bowl with your name on it?”</p><p>He muttered at her again, saying another ugly thing. But this time Sokka moved forward and backhanded him, snapping his head across his body and leaving a heavy red welt on his already bruising cheek. Din coughed and spat out bloody spittle, and a white tooth made a sound like a marble dropping on the floor.</p><p>“If you call her that again, I will kill you,” Sokka said, his voice low.</p><p>Suki glanced at him and turned her attention back to Din almost instantaneously.</p><p>“Where, Din? Where do they tell you to go?” she said, pushing down on his shoulder and adding in a two-fingered rabbit punch to a spot just below his heart that caused his face to contort in pain. “Where does the little doggie go?”</p><p>Din’s eyes were bulging with pain now. Sokka saw a war being fought in the man’s head of whether the future could be worse than the present.</p><p>He mumbled something else, and Suki let off the pressure.</p><p>“Oh, the basement of the Republic City Tower? Why thank you Din, you were most helpful,” she said, smiling at the tied-up, bruised and battered man before them. “You just wait right here for someone to come and find you. I doubt it will be too long, but then again, it’s not like you’ll be able to tell anyone just what happened to you, will it? A prostitute, beating a strong man like you to the punch and taking you prisoner? Of course not. You’ll just say you have specific proclivities, hmm? I think that will work Din, don’t you?” Suki purred at him. Din made no response.</p><p>“Alrighty, my work here is done,” she said, and turned to walk out of the bedroom, Sokka and Toph close behind her. She frowned at the firebender lying motionless on the floor and smiled at the metalbender suspended in the air.</p><p>“You two do certainly bring a certain panache whenever you show up,” she said, her voice laced with irony.</p><p>“We do what we gotta,” Toph said, shrugging. “Now, how about we leave?”</p><p>Suki nodded.</p><p>“Just what I was thinking. Is it time for a drink?” she said, looking at Sokka, her lip curling.</p><p>*** </p><p>The Bandit was empty except for Toph behind the counter and Sokka and Suki sitting on stools at it. Suki swirled her drink in its glass while Sokka sipped tea. Toph just leaned against the counter, her milky eyes half-closed as she listened to Suki and Sokka snipe at each other. She rubbed her eyes and broke into their conversation.</p><p>“Alright, if you two lovebirds wanna give it a rest, let’s talk about what we’re gonna do next. Suki, why are you even here? I thought Zuko had hired you to captain the Caldera City Guards and lead his private security detail. You’re a long ways from there, and I don’t see your VIP anywhere near here,” Toph said.</p><p>Suki and Sokka broke off their sparring.</p><p>“I’m on an op for him here, and it has to deal with what I believe you two are chasing down on Aang’s behalf,” she said, nodding at Toph.</p><p>“How long have you been here?” Toph asked.</p><p>“A little while; not long enough for you to learn I was here through your excellent source network, Toph,” Suki said, smiling at the bar-owner. Toph gave a grudging nod.</p><p>“I have figured out a few things though; you get very good at sussing out potential complications when working for someone as hated as the Fire Lord,” Suki said. Sokka sniffed. Suki ignored him.</p><p>“Zuko thinks Azula is here, but I’m not so sure; drugs are coming from the Fire Nation, but I don’t think the shipment you two intercepted is Black Dragon. It’s just the usual stuff. In fact, I don’t think Black Dragon even exists; it seems like a con to frighten people first and foremost. Koha said she thought it was at first, but testing it turned out to be the old drug manufactured to look like some new, more potent type,” Suki said.</p><p>“You talked to Koha? And she told you that?” Toph said, annoyed.</p><p>“She and I go back to when I was first hired by Zuko,” Suki said.</p><p>“Hmph.”</p><p>“Azula doesn’t condone drugs; never has had reason to. I doubt she would be involved in a drug trade at all,” Suki said.</p><p>“Ty Lee must have been playing for time then,” Sokka mused, his elbows on the counter and a toothpick between his teeth. “Otherwise why would she bother giving me a warning?”</p><p>“Oh, you and Ty Lee met already? Did you already wine and dine her or are you just waiting for a more opportune time to appreciate her skills?” Suki shot at Sokka.</p><p>Toph’s eyes rolled as the two started to squabble again.</p><p>“Alright, yeah, we know you broke up and are still too stubborn to admit it was a bad decision. Sokka, shut up. Suki, if Azula isn’t here, then why are burned torture victims showing up here? Why now? And if it isn’t her, then who the hell united the Triads?” Toph said.</p><p>The two had stopped arguing with each other and looked as if they were going to start with Toph when she put a hand up.</p><p>“I doubt we have a lot of time; I’ve heard there might be some movement here with the Triads in the next couple of days.”</p><p>“I heard that too. I say we infiltrate the Republic Tower basement and get an idea of what, exactly, Din was talking about. Tomorrow evening, meet me here,” she said, pulling out a card and letting it drift to the bar-top and stood up. “Toph, thank you for the drink.”</p><p>She left the Bandit, leaving Sokka morosely looking at his tea and Toph staring at the ceiling.</p><p>“You really are as dumb as you look, Water Boy,” Toph said.</p><p>Sokka just waved his hand in the air.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, I’ve known that for years,” he said. “Now what’s next?”</p><p>Toph hopped up onto the recently wiped down counter.</p><p>“Well, I see it two ways. First is we don’t go to the Republic Tower basement gambling den, whatever, because while he wasn’t lying I don’t trust him either. Second is we do it, raise all kinds of hell, and see what comes out of the woodwork.”</p><p>“Won’t there already be some battening down of the hatches cause we just broke in and uh, violently interrogated a major connection between the Triads and the capital guys? I can see that not creating the best conditions for a massive brawl,” Sokka said.</p><p>“Going in quiet isn’t gonna work either,” Toph said.</p><p>“Well, we could you know, just avoid all of — that,” Suki said, waving her hand.</p><p>Sokka and Toph exchanged a spiritual glance.</p><p>“So… what do you have in mind then?” Toph asked, rubbing her shoulder.</p><p>***</p><p>Sokka had to admit that Suki’s style was, well, more stylish. Working for the Fire Lord had its perks, even if he was a bit suspicious of Suki and Zuko’s relationship. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his friend, but for someone who thought constantly about his past mistakes, seeing Suki with Zuko was always a bit of a challenge.</p><p>Now he was dressed as a workman and was hidden deep in the bowels of Republic Tower working on a “foundation issue,” which meant Toph was going to create one as she tunneled into the new skyscraper herself. Sokka sat back against a girder driven deep into the ground and listened to the hum of the pumps that kept water from creeping into this underground temple to modern architecture. He had looked at the pump’s design when the Tower was going to be built, brought in as another expert to determine if they would work. Sokka had admired the sheer power they brought to bear against the forces of the delta the City was scarped into. He thought about the pumps now and again in his idle moments, but had never managed to see another use for them. That made them in this case, a perfect match for their job as well as a perfect machine.</p><p>Another rumble shook the ground under Sokka’s feet. With a slap of wet earth, Toph popped out of the ground grumbling about mud and who got it easy in this operation.</p><p>“Suki has the hard job; you and I have the easy one,” Sokka reminded Toph, who made a face at him. The two made their way from the sub-basement to the underground lair that held most of the high stakes gambling in the city, bickering lightly about the job and old, well-loved snits. The sound of the pumps kept them covered, but that didn’t keep Sokka from watching the deserted sub-basement for movement.</p><p>“OK, so Suki is going to give us the signal when she gets eyes on Tan Congee, and then I’m going to create a distraction by telling the pit boss the sub-basement is flooding and then once people start going, we’re gonna grab Congee and you’re gonna make the escape route?” Sokka said, then frowned.</p><p>“You know, working with Suki involves a lot of kidnapping and tying people up. Do you know why that is, Sokka?” Toph asked, her voice sweet as a fresh honeydew.</p><p>“We’re not gonna talk about … predilections … right now, Toph” Sokka said, blushing deeply under his cap.</p><p>They walked up a set of stairs that led to a utility door to the basement.</p><p>“You’re blushing, aren’t you,” Toph said.</p><p>“Shut up, Toph.”</p><p>“You could just talk to her about your feelings. And how you’re jealous of Zuko.”</p><p>“Shut up, Toph.”</p><p>“And how you only went on like, three dates with Ty Lee.”</p><p>“Shut <em>up,</em> Toph.”</p><p>“Then she had to leave with her circus and you realized you had made a huge mistake.”</p><p>“<em>Shut up, </em>Toph.”</p><p>“And got so drunk you ended up in the office at the Blind Bandit telling me you loved me and never should have let Suki go—”</p><p>“<em>Shut up, Toph</em>.”</p><p>Toph smiled and slipped to the side of the door as Sokka hit his annoyance point. He took a series of deep breaths to calm himself, then opened the door into a world that sang to the harmony of money.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Regret</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>THE BLIND BANDIT, SIX HOURS LATER</strong>
</p><p>“OK, one more time. Please tell me how this managed to get <em>this</em> fucked-up in the 15 minutes I let you out of my sight.”</p><p>“….”</p><p>“You know what I mean, Sokka.”</p><p>“Well….”</p><p>“I mean, we had to get Koha to deal with whatever happened to Suki, Sokka! She’s resting in my office now cause we can’t let the chief of the <em>Fire Lord’s security detail</em> go out onto the street because she’s lost too much blood!”</p><p>“Toph. It didn’t start well, and it didn’t end well either, alright?”</p><p>“Tell me what happened!”</p><p><strong>REPUBLIC TOWER, GAMBLING HALL</strong>, <strong>SIX HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE</strong></p><p>The first thing Sokka noticed when he walked into the hallway was that the security detail was on a state of higher alert, showing their weapons with the look that meant something bad had just happened and they were not responsible if someone asked questions, because they were focused on what they were doing. The second thing Sokka noticed was a crowd surrounding a table. The third thing Sokka noticed was that someone was screaming for a doctor.</p><p>“Shit,” he muttered, moving to the commotion.</p><p>The guards tried to stop him, but Sokka gave them a glare and pointed at the badge Suki had procured. He pushed through them and walked faster toward the crowd to find Tan Congee dead on the floor, his glass broken and the ice and shards flashing gaudily under the chandeliers.</p><p>The next thing Sokka noticed was Ty Lee.</p><p>The acrobat was smoking a cigarette, leaning against the velvet wall and flashing an unholy amount of thigh in a slit-sheath dress with an embroidered yellow snake curling like smoke around her. Sokka looked at Congee again and decided he could do nothing for him. He walked directly to Ty Lee, who he knew had seen him as soon as he came in the door.</p><p>“Oh, I should have known I would find you here,” Ty Lee said, taking what Sokka thought was an all-too-seductive suck of smoke. She shifted her leg again and Sokka found himself staring. His other self, which watched what he did all the time, kicked him to focus on what was going on.</p><p>“Congee?”</p><p>“Oh, <em>yeah</em>,” Ty Lee said, exhaling an exquisite line of smoke.</p><p>“You?” Sokka asked, receding into the cold place he went in the years he had gone to war.</p><p>“No, not <em>me</em>,” Ty Lee said, taking another puff of smoke.</p><p>“Then … oh no, Suki!” Sokka said, hot panic invading his coldness.</p><p>“<em>Yeah</em>,” Ty Lee said, exhaling and crossing her legs, a black heel catching the light like a knife under a street lamp.</p><p>Sokka ran to the backroom where Suki had said she would be when he came to warn the guards of the alleged leak. He threw a shoulder into the door and it exploded open. Framed against the chandeliers, the crowds, the crushed green velvet and the guards running full-bore toward him, Sokka saw a sight he had woke up in cold sweat and gasping in fear and horror of his dreams. Suki lay on the floor, sliced by a blade and barely breathing, her card dealer costume soaked in blood and a few silver chips cast like coins in a wishing well reflecting the dim light in the room.</p><p>
  <strong>THE BLIND BANDIT, SEVEN HOURS LATER</strong>
</p><p>“You did the right thing, you know.”</p><p>“I blew my cover and hers!”</p><p>“Sokka, you saved her life too, you idiot. Koha said the compression bandage you put on her was the best she’d seen anyone make, especially from green velvet wall hangings.”</p><p>“Ugh, but if Ty Lee was there then she knows Suki is looking into this whole thing!”</p><p>“I thought you said Ty Lee was more of a ‘free agent’ now.”</p><p>“She knew Mai was here, she knows what Azula is up to, I’ll bet she knows why fake Black Dragon is being pumped out onto the streets here too and she <em>definitely</em> <em>knows why Suki was stabbed.</em>”</p><p>“You forgot another thing.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“She knows why Congee was killed, too. Is she good with poisons?”</p><p>“No, she never liked them. Said they messed too much with her aura.”</p><p>“….”</p><p>“Verbatim quote, Toph. Ver-ba-tim.”</p><p>“Suki is definitely Mai’s kind of work. Precise, but I think she got scared when she realized who Suki was. Koha said it was a pro.”</p><p>“Well, if Mai is here, then that means—”</p><p>“<em>Azula is here.</em>”</p><p>“Shit.”</p><p>“You said it.”</p><p>“So, what now?”</p><p>“Well, lover boy, I think you’re going to need to get some information out of little miss acrobat.”</p><p>
  <strong>TWO DAYS LATER</strong>
</p><p>The little noodle restaurant Sokka had asked Ty Lee to meet him was exactly the kind of place he loved. A veneer of grease, but the exact kind of flavor you wanted on a damp and chilly night to keep the cold out. The rice wine here was also heated with a secret tool Sokka had wanted to dissect and figure out how it worked since forever. Seated in a cramped booth, he sipped on wine and watched through the windows and rain for Ty Lee.</p><p>Sokka still didn’t know how he felt about the woman. She was dangerous, a gila-cobra always sheathed in beautiful silk dresses that went high up her throat and showed off her full curves. It also showed she didn’t have any weapons, but Sokka knew she didn’t need them when she could move so fast the air hissed when she struck. He hated that he wanted her, especially now, right after Suki had been hurt and she had stood by and did nothing.</p><p>He had made it through the first stoneware carafe when the door opened. Sokka tensed, but just saw a man in a long slicker walk through the door and wave to the counter cook. He relaxed and was just about to order a refill when the slicker turned to his table and slid in with practiced speed.</p><p>“I thought you were off the stuff, Sokka,” Fire Lord Zuko said, his voice pleasant but rough.</p><p>“I was. Things change,” Sokka said, trying to keep both surprise and annoyance from his voice.</p><p>“Yeah, and I think you’ve had enough,” Zuko said, waving off the waiter.</p><p>“I will have had enough when I’ve had enough,” Sokka said, looking down at his lap and feeling shame well up beneath his shock.</p><p>“Do you remember when we went to the Boiling Rock?” Zuko asked.</p><p>“I don’t have time to remember anything right now, Zuko. Suki’s been hurt, badly, and I need—”</p><p>“You don’t <em>need</em> to do anything right now, Sokka, except share a meal with your old friend,” Zuko said.</p><p>Sokka stopped. Zuko had spoken with the command of a Fire Lord. The shame was welling up in him now, as the last two days had gone by in a blur of drinking in the Blind Bandit. Toph had shut the bar down and let him drink, because she knew when he got started he couldn’t be stopped until he had gotten the binge out of him. He was nursing the wine because he needed something to stave the hangover off. Zuko was right, but Sokka didn’t have to be happy to see him.</p><p>Zuko smiled slightly as Sokka tried to control his face. The Fire Lord waved to the counterman, who brought them both bowls of udon noodles and bowed to Zuko, who looked faintly embarrassed by it. Sokka forced himself to relax. He had been so amped to deal with Ty Lee that he was struggling to come down from the adrenaline and alcohol.</p><p>“Ah, it is as good as I remember,” Zuko said, slurping his noodles unroyally.</p><p>“Wait, you’ve been here before?” Sokka asked, surprised again.</p><p>“Yeah. Best udon in Republic City. Suki brought me here a couple years back after a council meeting. They have a really interesting way to keep the wine warm, I learned from her,” Zuko said.</p><p>Sokka sat still for a moment, then began to eat too. He sped up as he went along as he realized how hungry he was after two days of eating barely anything.</p><p>“Ah. Nothing better than udon with egg and fish cake. Now, do you remember when we went to the Boiling Rock? And you had zero plan to start, but were determined to be an idiot anyway? And then I went with you, and we still had no plan?” Zuko said.</p><p>“… I don’t know why you had to mention we still didn’t have a plan, but yeah. It worked out, didn’t it?” Sokka retorted.</p><p>“Yeah. Because we got really, really, really, stupidly lucky, Sokka. Now, do you know what that has in common with what you’re doing right now?” Zuko said, his voice even.</p><p>Sokka paused again.</p><p>“Yeah. Now, I can help you. Because I know what you’re going up against, Sokka.”</p><p>“And what is that.”</p><p>“Guess.”</p><p>Sokka relaxed again and leaned against the wall, stretching one leg onto the seat. He tapped his chopsticks on the table and looked at Zuko through narrowed eyes. If the Fire Lord was here, that meant this was political. And if it was political and Azula was involved … then that meant …</p><p>“Shit.”</p><p>Zuko nodded.</p><p>“Another shot at the throne?”</p><p>Zuko rubbed his eyes. Sokka noticed he looked tired. There were lines on his forehead and bags under his eyes that weren’t there before, and shoulders slumped slightly under his suit.</p><p>“Yeah. Another shot at the throne. By going through Republic City,” Zuko said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.</p><p>Zuko pulled an oilskin packet out of his slicker and slid it across the table. Sokka opened it and shuffled through the papers: reports put together by the Fire Nation’s intelligence teams in-country and Republic City. As he read through the papers, he noticed something odd.</p><p>“Agent 4… they’re attached to a ‘traveling acrobatics group’?” Sokka asked.</p><p>Zuko nodded again.</p><p>“Is that… Ty Lee?”</p><p>The Fire Lord nodded again.</p><p>“THEN WHY DIDN’T SHE HELP SUKI?” Sokka shouted.</p><p>“Because then her cover would be blown, Sokka, and once she saw you she had to leave,” Zuko said, patiently.</p><p>Sokka subsided. Zuko rolled his eyes at him and waved off a well-dressed woman who had come through the kitchen door at the sound of Sokka’s outburst.</p><p>“See? This is why the Boiling Rock was quite possibly the dumbest thing you’ve ever done,” Zuko began, and seeing Sokka start to open his mouth, rolled his eyes again.</p><p>“But it worked because you’re a genius at making changes on the fly. That was a blow that helped win the war,” Zuko continued.</p><p>“What I need from you now is to help me understand just what, exactly, Azula is going to do next and what I can do to make sure she gets put down. For good.”</p><p>“Your people said she wasn’t involved with the drugs, and all of that just gets—” Sokka made a haphazard motion with his hands — “<em>weird</em>.”</p><p>“Did you happen to get what the exact chemical makeup was from Koha?” Zuko asked.</p><p>“Does everyone know who Koha is?” Sokka asked, exasperated.</p><p>“Why do you think Toph knows about her?” Zuko said, his eyebrow raised.</p><p>“She’s not gonna be pleased about that. Then again, is she ever happy?” Sokka said, shaking his head.</p><p>Zuko barked out a laugh.</p><p>“Remember when she wanted to go on an adventure with me? Well, guess this might be her chance. Here’s the chemical compound in the “Black Dragon,” Sokka. What does this look like to you?”</p><p>Sokka took the paper and read through the contents. He turned a page, then flipped back. Then realization dawned.</p><p>“Oh shit,” he breathed.</p><p>Zuko looked at him intently, leaning his chin on folded hands.</p><p>“Do you recognize it?” he asked.</p><p>“Yeah. This is a compound the Earth Kingdom discovered a few years after the war was over that was supposed to be used in mining operations. And then, well, it became useful for <em>other</em> tasks. We used to use it in our digging operations in the Fire Nation until a few accidents made us stop,” Sokka said, frowning. Then he breathed out with understanding.</p><p>“Oh <em>shit</em>.”</p><p>“Yeah. Our best guess right now is that she’s aiming for something here in Republic City —"</p><p>“The Council. It’s gonna be the Council. It’s gotta be the council,” Sokka said.</p><p>Zuko nodded.</p><p>“If we know that … then what?” Sokka asked.</p><p>“That’s where you come in, Sokka,” Zuko said, and called for more tea.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>